Jason Jägel

Selectoring: Art and Music

Acclaimed artist, record collector, album art designer and storyteller Jason Jagel joins for an inspired talk on the lines between connoisseurship and artistry.

In his own words: My plans are to make a multi-media talk about how music and art intersect for me. This includes my interest in collecting records, using records as a history book, personal coincidences, deliberately keeping things complicated, being a fan, incorporating Madlib and MF Doom into my work and the ways they already existed there, and how I've created purpose from being a failed comic artist and a wannabe record cover artist. (hardly!)

As a non-musician, I make music a central part of my life. Usually, I’d rather seek inspiration at a record store than a gallery or museum. Record collecting is a commitment. I am particularly keen on obscure music for the inherent drive that created something independently as well as for the effort involved to learn about. Artwork reflects the creative decisions made in the working process and those decisions are informed, to one degree or another, by other art. Having an eye for what looks right in any artwork, an ear for what sounds right is the fulcrum of being an artist and connoisseur.

As Madlib stated in conversation with Roy Ayers: “The best times are when I'm just playing around in the studio, it's always different only sometimes there's a pattern.”